"They take a piece of the foam board insulation like you put on the side of a house, cut it into a rectangle and attach the line to one end," Greene described.

The rectangle lies flat on the water when it's drifting, but tips up when a catfish bites, thus alerting the nearby angler that he's got a fish.

No matter what corner of the Cotton State you call home, chances are good that some really fine catfishing will be found nearby. From the Mobile Delta to the Tennessee River in North Alabama, catfish are abundant statewide.

According to Greene, other good catfish waters in this part of the state are the lakes along the lower Coosa River lakes near Montgomery.

DISTRICT 5
The southeastern corner of the state is one of those regions with so many good catfish waters that it's hard to pick out just one. If he has to pick just one, management biologist Ben Ricks points to the Mobile Delta. It covers some 20,323 acres of water just north of Mobile Bay and is second in size only to the Mississippi River Delta. The Alabama DCNR describes it as a "complex network of tidally influenced rivers, creeks, bays, lakes, wetlands and bayous."

Ricks said catfish anglers here routinely bait their hooks with shrimp, rather than night crawlers, chicken livers or more traditional baits.

"The Delta is a huge area and it has a mixture of blues, channel cats and a few bullheads," Ricks added.

He urged anglers to try their luck in areas with current. If you can cast into an eddy, so much the better.

"We don't have the really big ones like anglers get on the Tennessee River, but we've got some nice fish," Ricks assured. "We hear of fish in the 30- to 50-pound range."

The biologist went on to point out that anglers need to keep an eye on the salinity levels of the water. Too much salt can hurt catfishing in the Delta later in the summer.

Other good bets in District 5 include the three state lakes -- Escambia County, Washington County and Monroe County.

"We stock these lakes with catfish specifically for people to catch," Ricks said. "It's a put-and-take fishery."

Recent sampling indicated abundant numbers of 4-pound catfish in Escambia County Lake.

"That's a good eating size fish," Ricks offered.

Washington County Lake had good numbers of catfish in the 2- to 4-pound range. The state typically adds 150 catfish per acre when stocking the state lakes, so there are plenty of cats swimming in those lakes.

"They provide some excellent fishing and they're underused," Ricks stated. "They're great places to go and do some fishing."